


Run Deep, Run Wild

by kosmokomik (orphan_account)



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Gen, One-Sided Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-29
Updated: 2012-03-29
Packaged: 2017-11-02 16:51:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/371239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/kosmokomik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The rogue, the prodigal, the titles of the error: she was the unconditional flaw. By the Goddess, did she love being the flaw. </p>
<p>Once saved by Shepard and freed of her mother's judgement, Morinth looks back and forwards on her life as she tries to piece it together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run Deep, Run Wild

The proposal hung in the air after Morinth had uttered it. Why? Why did it had to be Shepard that was the only viable option for her to be sated?

Many reasons could be proposed, but when scrutinized none of them were even vaguely viable as an explanation. It just had to be Shepard; the muscled lethality cutting a swath of destruction, leaving a wake of ashes and cinders, her tight reign of the ship she commanded impeccable. She was perfect in her danger, vicious in her beauty.

Predators prey on those that are weaker, and Morinth knew she was flinging herself straight into hazardous territory from which there was no clear outcome. She was set on Shepard though. Shepard, titled icon and hero and saviour, who hated all glorifications equally and shrugged them off dismissively each time someone tried to hold her to them.

Shepard ignored it and lit up a cigarette instead. Nowhere else on the ship did she smoke but in Morinth's room, chaining them through igniting the new one on the smoldering tip of the old. The leather of the couches smelled of the smoke. Any time Morinth sat down, she caught a whiff of it rising up, smelling exactly like Shepard.

There were other things Shepard came there for. To talk. Or listen. She appeared to enjoy both, her body relaxing ever so slightly but not enough: not like she was with the others. Morinth had caught peeks of her with them, and she never smoked near them. Sometimes she even smiled; that stupid, wide grin that was contagious. She knew them all, studied them with great intensity, the same attention that she paid to her enemies.

Shepard didn't fully trust them all. She could say she did, but it wasn't the complete truth, and it made the corners of Morinth's mouth twist upwards into a smile as she thought about it. It wasn't a surprise to her, by any means: they were an odd gathering of unlikely followers, all slightly crazy and slightly too dedicated to being under the sway of Shepard's authoritative voice. And they were all angling to get something out of it, too. Shepard dabbled in saving them all, one lost soul at a time.

Samara had wanted the same – she could imagine her mother, meditating on the floor in the cross-legged position as she did, asking Shepard in that tranquil voice, for help in ending Morinth. Oh mother, so predictable.

Shepard flicked off a bit of cigarette ash into the tray.

Obviously Shepard knew strength when she saw it. It had been her hand, in the end, that had decided it all. Morinth equalled Samara, and they could have gone on for years, wrecking Omega apart, had she not been there.

Supposedly she felt grateful about it. Freedom, her predator gone. The game gone, the empty board with only piece left: she'd won. Checkmate, mother. Her servitude, for the moment being, in Shepard's hands.

_I'm just as much as my mother was. More. I'll be everything you need._ She inclined her head, studying Shepard's flawless, unscarred face. _Everything._

The two of them couldn't possibly survive what she desired. One would falter under the weight, crushed to the other's will.

* * *

She didn't like the human game Russian roulette. It was about chance, not skill. Chance can favor anyone, and doesn't account for what muscles that can tense and relax under the skin, for what biotic prowess you've built up, nor for what processes go through your brain. Complete chance, but she still found people who cared for those old, metallic  _revolvers._  Funny contraptions, but elegant.

Bullets that fit it were harder to come by: the human mercenary she'd lived with for a year was on a constant mission to find more. His idea of fun was getting the entire crew drunk and leave them with the revolver and a bullet, and if he was lucky, the one he currently detested the most would be getting spaced the next day and his belongings distributed among the survivors. If chance wasn't on his side, he ended up drinking sour whiskey for a few days, muttering angrily.

At night, he'd hang it on the wall in his cabin in a glass box, and she'd watch it from the bed when she couldn't sleep.

She'd watch the crew play the game. The newest recruit always got the messy job of digging out the bullet from the head of the latest victim: they'd be found retching over digging their hands into the soft mush of dead brain tissue, the stench hanging over them for days no matter how much they showered or doused themselves in perfume.

She'd watch the pilot count the bodies, cutting notches into the side of his seat up on the bridge. He lit up cigars every evening, nasty batarian-derivatives that smelled of varren feces.

The ship life itself bored her, but it was a convenient way to keep in motion while finding new prey in each harbor. They didn't ask, and they didn't try to touch her.

Only the captain knew what she was, and he didn't mind. As he explained it to her: whatever desires he had were gone, blown away by a shotgun. He didn't elaborate, but she would now and then hear him mutter a name in his sleep, hand over the scarred, lumpy remains at his crotch.

They shared bed, sleeping on separate sides of it. He wasn't attractive to her, and he didn't feel anything for her but a fearful admiration, it was just that he had the softest bed, and she got some privacy near him.

Nothing so peaceful lasts, of course. The restlessness begins to crawl under the skin, electric pulses going on and off, the bones aching for it.

Russian roulette is an annoying game of chance. Spin the cylinder, swallow your drink and pray to your preferred deity. Pray that your Ardat-Yakshi doesn't get bored and persuasive.

* * *

Quick lessons learnt about love:

_Love is meant to be painless_.

Love was pure pain. Love was as painful as having a bitch with envy-worthy biotic powers following your step through the galaxy with the single-minded intent of crushing your skull into a wall. Love was that she was your mother and she was meant to love you unconditionally, no matter your flaws, no matter your homicidal genetic code. Love was that she wasn't going to cry as she killed you, because you'd broken the laws of mother-daughter love years ago and pushed the boundary when eschewing the rules laid out.

_Love means wanting the best for the object of your affection_.

Mother loves you: then mother tries to shut you up in a solitary confinement where no one will ever touch you like you yearn for, where you'll meditate and make honey and look through the windows at a universe out of your reach. How exciting. When you refuse to accept, she swears to hunt you down and neutralize you herself.

_Love is unconditional_.

Love as the ultimate force of benevolence was a ridiculous idea. There were loopholes and clauses that could get the other partner to consider your actions a breach of contract. Breaking the rules of love was all too easily done. She just couldn't be outdone in her lethality of the illicitness of her way of loving. The rogue, the prodigal, the titles of the error: she was the unconditional flaw. By the Goddess, did she love being the flaw.

* * *

Shepard appeared to her in one of her hungrier periods, during which she was compelled to keep gnawing at the life put in front of her, artistically inclined being the flavor of the decade. The flow of her appetite was varying – some years she had hunted the big prey, slowly pulling the net together. There was equal thrill in the hunt as she approached it – that day – when the minds would meet and the truth be revealed.

Someone other than her mother may have even thought that she might have loved those individuals and dragged out the inevitable melding to the final moment. Samara, on the other hand, would just see the cruelty of the hunt, of the vicious predator toying with her dinner. Such metaphors always did make Morinth exceedingly hungry.

Then, following such courtships, she would feel the burning heat of hunger, her throat dry and raw. Nef, sweet little Nef, had been a blossom waiting to open. Carefully, Morinth had peeled back petal after petal, watching the artist smile more, dance more wildly, create jagged art that looked as vicious as beautiful. Morinth had truly delighted in Nef, a wonder to behold as she opened herself up. She'd been crying of happiness when they melded, her wet cheeks streaked with a salty taste.

Nef had gone out with a sigh of pleasure. Morinth would never be cruel enough to not give those who dared to love her at least a worthy parting, a joyous occasion of the finest pains and delights intertwined, an explosion of the senses as she mangled their minds.

* * *

Shepard doubted, of course. A cigarette between her full pink lips, her kissable touchable lips, the smoke hanging in clouds around her. Furrowed brow, hair still carrying the stench of Zakera Ward.

It'd been ages since Morinth had dared to set foot on the Citadel, and even still she tensed up and refused to disembark the Normandy. Shepard's nigh-immunity wasn't enough: her disguise felt less trustworthy on that station, especially after Kasumi Goto had seen through it.

She was grateful nonetheless. But there must have been a reason she chose Morinth – that she gave her life – and it wasn't Morinth's control. She couldn't exercise that kind of influence over Shepard – and not from lack of trying.

"Imagine, Shepard, that you have the mental fortitude to withstand me. I know about you – I've read – you could cope with Prothean information. You have gone through death and have emerged here, still alive, stronger, fighting. You are unique."

"Morinth, both you and I know that I wouldn't survive. Stop trying to delude me."

Morinth felt like scoffing. There was delusion and there was truth. And then, there was Shepard, almost like an illusion, someone she had barely dared to think of. The one who could suffer through her without giving in; the one who could hunt along her.

"You're stronger than you give yourself credit for. You resisted me. You could be... Just try to understand what it would mean to me to have someone who could survive melding with me."

Morinth had lied to herself, if only because she thought that the loneliness of her strength could be shouldered by another one.

* * *

" _Then don't look at me like you do."_

" _Don't touch me like that if this isn't what you want."_

" _Don't tempt me."_

Don't tempt fate. Warnings are easily ignored because blue skin is just that exciting to touch, and melding just that exotic to experience. Even the ones you truly, fully love will succumb to the inevitable pull.

* * *

When she first ran, she didn't have a philosophy, didn't have any grand ideas – she was just a kid scared of death. Barely forty and she just wanted to live, to experience all that life had to give her. She was terrified as she seduced her way onto a spaceship, paying for it with credits stolen from Samara's account.

She started in all simplicity. Went for the basics. She had to harden herself – she was just a meek little one, two trembling hands, shaking knees, barely able to think of the galaxy in terms of violence. But when you're playing prey and predator with a mother in her prime, you have to become a strong enough predator to one day be able to face her – and escape.

Mercenaries were easy. Stayed with them long enough to get what she needed and practice her own skills. She was terrible at first, tiny fledgling bumbling into the lives of hard-necked krogans with a penchant for tight asari asses.  _Teach me_ , she'd whisper, holding back on the melding until they gave her what she wanted – then they'd get theirs. Carefully she picked her way through the galaxy, attempting to stay hidden as the years rolled on.

* * *

Morinth hadn't really wanted to kill her mother. For all that it was to her, she'd rather just let it go and let her live.  _Leave me, I'll leave you_. Of course, the bonds aren't that easily broken.

Necks are, though. A crack, a snap, and it's done.

* * *

_Falere,_

_The reason they put you in convents and expect you to pray to the Goddess every day is the expectation that one day you will snap – or someone else – and go on a binge killing the rest of them. That's the easiest way they could think of to dispose of Ardat-Yakshis, pit them against each other like varrens and watch from their safety as we decimate each other. Do you think they take bets, dropping credits on who is the most murderous? I know it won't be you, and it's a shame. Imagine who you could have been, had you taken the risks I have. Imagine the life you could have lived._

_One day, I will set you free. Let you see what I have seen, let you experience what I have gone through. We're unique, and yet you were too fearful to embrace it. I have fought, I have bled, I have suffered, but this freedom is mine, and mine alone. It is too precious to give up._

_There are planets to suit every taste; worlds that you cannot even imagine, bustling with life and vigor, the centuries molding and changing them to reflect what rises and falls. I've seen the quarians become galactic refugees, and the rise and rise of humans, clawing their way across the stars and eking out an existence. They're fascinating – at times called the new vorcha, and not without reason I think._

_I keep returning, time and time again, to the orbiting space stations where they grow in population. From the shadows of the night clubs I watch them, their hot skin radiating heat, their strange hair shaped into a multitude of fashions on the top of their head._

_When I first ran away, a whole new way of living opened up to me. How do you imagine life to be like out here, outside the walls you've been doomed to roam inside of? It's colorful, vivid, at times too much, your nerves getting ground to pieces under the relentless onslaught of everything there is to take in. There's music I'd like to play for you, watch your face as it gets into you and slowly mauls you, changing you forever. There are paintings, sculptures, vids that etch themselves into your retina: each time I close my eyes and recall the images of Vaenia, so intense as to move me._

_I imagine what these expressions could do to you. What fraction of the great current artists working in this galaxy have you been exposed to? I remember your smile as we went to the Museum of Modern Artistry in Armali, how you walked through the airy exhibition halls until your feet were raw in your too-small shoes, and I found you dizzy in a corner after following the trail, you crying because you hurt and yet you wanted to see more, experience more, feel more._

_Do you sit by the window these days, lost in reverie, doing nothing?_

_I live a life. It's more than can be said about you, waiting for death to wipe you off the face of this galaxy and be forgotten by all. Freedom can be attained by you as well, if only you dare reach out and grasp it._

_Signed,_

_Someone who still remembers_

* * *

_Morinth,_

_How is mother?_

_Sincerely,_

_Falere_

* * *

"My mother wouldn't let me be myself," she said with disdain. "It had to be a life lived in austerity, bleakness, on other's conditions."

Shepard lit up a cigarette. "Samara told me of things you've done." A breath exhaled, the silky smoke making Morinth's nose-tip itch.

"Hyperbole, most of it, I assure you."

Shepard quirked an eyebrow.

"So the whole demon of the night winds?"

"Stories, from long ago. Ardat-Yakshi are asaris, but aren't treated like asaris. We're isolated, or executed. There's no freedom because they deem us dangerous."

"You are."

Morinth shrugged, but her voice was cold and hard. "I'm extreme. I'm the rage. I'm the predator kept caged for too long, the lust and will of a thousand Ardat-Yakshis speaking through me. We've been denied, hidden, eradicated. Take me as a reminder to the asari that they can't do this to their own, even if they're too scared of what we are to see a future for us."

Shepard's pupils were dilating, if only ever so slightly. Her gaze reminded Morinth of the prey she thought she had found in Afterlife, a prey that would have fought against her to the very end. She'd been in the mood for something a bit more stormy and violent than Nef – variety was a delicious spice of life.

Shepard wasn't prey, exactly. And she wasn't preying on Morinth, just... Genuinely listening. She didn't fit into the dichotomy that had colored Morinth's life.

She stirred up so many memories to Morinth that the asari felt she spent more time looking back on her life than living it.

"The first time I melded," Morinth said, voice lowered and husky as the memory came back to her clear as water, "she died. My partner. I was the last one of my sisters who did, and it was only when I performed the act that our condition was brought to light."

"Your sisters didn't kill?"

"No. Not all Ardat-Yakshi kill their victims, some just cause a sort of over-stimulation. Each case varies between the common types, and some uncommon ones, yet we're all judged equally: as monsters. But my sisters... I pitied them then, because they accepted their fate. Sealed away in isolation, crafting baubles to fill their days. I pity them still, for they have never been given the chance to become their ultimate selves."

* * *

Her sisters, confidence dented from their fledgling youth romances, had not been able to offer up any good advice for Morinth's first melding. Rila had said, bitterness evident about what she thought was just the inexperienced touch, that she hoped the asari in question at least wouldn't faint and hit her head against a table. She'd suffered a concussion and the mother had thrown a tantrum at Samara, fretting that her daughter's development and potential had been forever ruined by Rila.

Young asaris often fumble, often trip on the first step. The signs were there, but were fully misinterpreted as the fumbling mistakes of getting used to the process of melding. Easily dismissed, easily gone away with practice.

Falere, sweeter, had a relationship: functional, working, adolescent innocent in the room next to Morinth's. All she ever managed was that one first night, three days before Morinth was to spark the ending of the family happiness: Morinth had listened as Falere's girlfriend complained of a small headache, but there was a smile in her voice, and they had fallen asleep on the other side of the wall after soft kisses and reassurances of mutual love.

It happened in Serrice. A bar, a tired asari matriarch, a Morinth who was curious and a drink that made her smile a dumb, tooth-baring grin every time the matriarch looked at her with those dark eyes of hers. A discreet high-class bar, a table of their own. Hands in the shadows, skin against skin, whispers of what she could show the young one, all the greatness there was to be had.

Lips against lips in a bed and then the eyes, those entrancing eyes, drawing her in and assuring her that it would be fine.

How could Morinth have known that she was the Councilor?

The body had gone limp on top of her, weighing her down and keeping her pinned to the bed. It had taken Morinth all the strength she had to muster up to roll the matriarch over, and begin poking her, gently at first and then more insistent.  _Wake up, wake up, what's wrong?_ She knew full well that those open eyes, darkened into the eternity she had embraced, wouldn't react.

Samara came in at the police station, face set into a stone mask, eyes cold, to pick her up. She didn't say a word as she listened to the charges raised against Morinth, but due to her young age and Ardat-Yakshi status, they had released her to the family pending seclusion.

Rila and Falere were already gone when she came home, and she walked between their empty rooms, their belongings packed up in boxes. They'd given up.

Morinth couldn't. She just couldn't.

That final night she stood alone in front of the mirror, mimicking Samara's walk and voice, the way her face tensed as she pushed her chin out. She molded herself to be just like Samara, for one night – and for many nights to come – and slipped out and away from Thessia forever.

* * *

The village had been excessive, yes, even she could see that in retrospect. But she'd been running, and she wanted to catch a glimpse of Samara – and send her a message. Her hopes had been that what she did there would make Samara realize that she wasn't who she'd been years ago. That she had changed and that she was just within reach of being able to stand up in a fight against her.

She'd watched Samara fight through the villagers from a safe distance, the biotic energies making the ground tremble at times. Samara, terrifying, controlled, and completely unrepentant as she clung to the code for all she had.

Morinth didn't force Samara's hand – she'd just walked away from their family and the decisions they had made. If only Samara hadn't been so damn righteous all the time, then she could still have been living the life she had carved out for herself on Thessia, with a bondmate and daughters. If only she hadn't turned to the damned code and the five thousand sutras, trying to make amends and righting wrongs. Correcting the error Morinth was.

The message had been simple: _stop it. Your family still exists. Thessia calls your name. I won't absolve your genetic crimes_. Samara, strong-willed as ever, ignored it. As she closed the distance between them, Morinth fled, knowing that she had nothing on her mother yet, all her power just a sneeze against the forceful gale pursuing her.

* * *

_Rila,_

_I heard that she died today. Did you speak to her in her final years? Did she die alone, isolated with memories and shame? I can barely call up her memory anymore. She's just a faint outline, weak, fading before she even grew cold._

_Do you still make those novelty trinkets for tourists to purchase on the Citadel? I would go buy one myself, hold it in my hand and think of you, and the day when we first came here. Do you remember how much we loved the holovid of 'Justicar Ryliea and the Ardat-Yakshi of Illium', watching it time and time again that weekend? How she watched it with us one time, holding us in her embrace as Samara was off wandering the wards? She was sad and small and frail then already. But beautiful. I think of that time some nights when the lovers I take want to speak of family. The silence, the touch, the warmth – what else did a daughter need?_

_What did Samara give us, in return? A metaphoric gun pointed at our temples, the cold barrel pressing against our skin._

_I miss the one who actually loved us. Who cared. Not this justicar sacrificing us all under the disappointment she cannot contain within herself. We're not to blame._

_Yours,_

_The other one_

* * *

_Morinth,_

_Stop surviving, stop running, and just see if you could actually hold up against Samara. Not even your clever, poisonous tongue could save you then. She loved you the most, I think she'll be too gentle with you anyway. That's why we never ran. We weren't precious enough to her to survive for as long as you did._

_Best wishes,_

_Rila_

* * *

_The genetic destiny of the asari_. Samara hadn't listened.

But it was true. Had they never encountered other intelligent life-forms, the pureblood mating would have been the only way forward, and the longer the ancestry of pure asari, the more likely the genetic defect of Ardat-Yakshi was bound to manifest itself. Sterility, yes, but it was the ultimate ending. The purest form of asari, unable to re-produce, absorbing others in violent ways through the melding, leaving a trail of death in their wake.

Such a perfect way to end the race: with a shuddering bang. It made Morinth's skin crawl just thinking of it, delighting in the mayhem they would have gone through.

No one was willing to accept that. The darkness of the true fate that had awaited them had then been alone at the Citadel was a repressed part of the collective unconscious: a nightmare skirting the edges of their history, denied by chance alone.

The final remains were shut away and forgotten, neglected in the shadow of the greatness that had since occurred. Watering down purity, achieving nothing but dull peace and serene life.

* * *

Morinth could imagine two possible outcomes.

The first would be a perfect example of what Morinth had observed throughout her many years was about the bitter reality of dying: that there was always someone ready to replace you. The universe may have made you look Unique, made you appear to be The Only One Who Could Occupy This Particular Spot, but the truth was that someone else would soon fill the empty spot you left behind.

Someone else would pick up Shepard's guns, shoot at her targets, and eventually, someone would win against the adversaries. That Someone, Somewhere had to.

In death, at least Shepard would be peaceful. Morinth imagined the scene: the circles under her eyes less severe as she rested half-turned on bed, the pout of her kiss-swollen lips, the way the cold sweat-drops on her forehead plastered the tousled hair to her skin. Such a delicious fantasy.

Morinth arched an eyebrow at herself as she dressed in Samara's old suit, red and horribly out of style. As soon as the lover was empty, she wouldn't feel the attraction anymore. The lust would abate, she'd...

No. That was self-deception. While the lust may vanish, she would be overcome by other emotions, tearing at her composure – she would be raging at Shepard for letting it happen, for being too weak, too mortal, too ready to give in to her.

There'd been a fair share of failures along her path. Melding with Shepard couldn't be allowed to be one of them.

What she wished for, truly desired, was that Shepard could survive. That for once, she'd find a mind strong enough to... To not be torn away from her at the critical moment when everything was to be revealed.

She dreamed of it at night, the joy of working her way into another's nervous system. That pulsating, throbbing, glowing core that was the centre of the metaphysical essence within each person that yielded to her melding. The it, the core of Shepard, just within reaching distance. A flick of her finger and she could have her. Devour her.

Even in her dreams, the same thing would happen. Before she even managed to dig into what she desired, the spark would go out.

The end was always a forcible ejection from the other's mind – true, the small movements of a mind, the electric signals and what else, it sometimes lingered, pulsing at odd intervals, eventually quieting down. But there was the exact moment when the action was done – only it never happened. At least, not that she could feel.

Melding was a way to grow to stronger. Each joining would thicken her skin, sharpen her resolve. It was the constant sharpening of a knife, and the constant disappointment of never achieving a true connection with another, no matter how hard she would try.

The second possible outcome was cruel in its nature to even imply – Morinth was just too strong – wrecking any lesser mind. In this matter, Shepard would always be inferior.

* * *

She wasn't used to rejection. It's not what people do to her. With her voice she has been able to suggestively taunt forth riots on space stations and set an entire village ablaze with delusional beliefs. It's a force, a weapon, something to be reckoned with. Yet no matter how much she talked, the tendrils never affected Shepard.

With Shepard, it's not needed to try and be someone she's not. It's disarming. Frustrating. Centuries of work to appear like a civilized asari, to smoothen out her dark edges, and Shepard actually preferred her raw and monstrous. Those brutal stories of what she has done in her life sometimes manage to elicit a smile from the weary soldier, and the beauty of it never ceased to amaze Morinth.

They sat in the observatory couches with one seat between them – a security perimeter, as much for Morinth as for Shepard.

What can she truly offer?

"One day, Morinth," Shepard said, punching out another cigarette with a jab of her thumb against the soft packet, "I'll reach a point in my life where I've had enough. And maybe, at that time, I'll want to go out in a blaze. Not coughing myself to the final sleep on some shitty hospital bed, and not die because some mercenary thought it was a good idea to collect a bounty on my head. And that day, you better be alive, so I can go out with some dignity."

She could offer death – uncompromising, unadulterated death.

* * *

_Morinth,_

_I know the body they found on Omega wasn't yours. They took me out of confinement and asked me to identify it (don't ask about Rila, she's... not well) and I had to breathe very deeply, and very hard, but indeed, I could see that it wasn't you. So you succeeded in outwitting Samara – I can't say I will miss her – and neither can I say if the galaxy will be better or worse now._

_Luck is a fickle thing. It wasn't on Samara's side, but it won't always be on yours either. Keep strong, sister. The line between freedom and captivity due to our genetic mishap is finer than you think, and maybe, Rila and I are freer than you, and you're more of a slave under it than we are._

_Love,_

_Falere_


End file.
